The new world order cheerfully announced by the Bush administration after the collapse of the USSR, formally ended the Cold War and the real threat of European nuclear annihilation. However, Eastern and Western experts both agree that neither the bipolar order nor the United States’ subsequent unipolar hegemony succeeded in creating a peaceful world. Even as defence and political alliances factually eliminated the danger of European interstate warfare, a unified security order encompassing all European states did not emerge. Pushing aside the opportunity offered by the Charter of Paris, Europe was divided into several spaces of security.